Daily News

Meet the Bold ‘New Feminists’ (15830)

Modern women proclaim the ‘feminine genius’ — and stand up for true freedom and happiness.

Editor's note: This story has been updated post-rally, since the original Aug. 1 version.

WASHINGTON — In a fiery political protest against the federal mandate requiring religious employers to pay for contraceptives and abortion drugs, hundreds of “new feminists” attended a rally here on Aug. 1 across from the White House.

Gathered in Lafayette Square, the crowd of some 200 women from 20 states spoke out boldly through bullhorns against the agenda of the “old feminists,” who continue to claim abortion and the pill have set women “free.”

“There is no war on women; there’s a war on mothers,” shouted Washington lawyer Cynthia Wood, whose remarks sparked cheers from the crowd.

To rousing applause, Maya Noronha, another attorney, shouted, “I went to Georgetown Law. But my classmate Sandra Fluke does not speak for me. … I can speak for myself. And I speak for religious freedom.”

Observing that he felt he was “witnessing another historic moment” akin to the first Tax Day Tea Party Rally, held on the same spot on April 15, 2009, American Thinker reporter Doug Mainwaring wrote, “This is Main Street America springing to life to save our government from itself.”

But women themselves say it’s more than that. Organized by George Mason University law professor and founder of Women Speak for Themselves, Helen Alvare, the protest rally, they say, is just one visible sign of a far deeper and broader trend that’s happening nationwide.

A vital “new feminism”— what some refer to as feminism’s “third wave” — is popping up everywhere across America, in university philosophy and theology departments, workplaces, hospitals and schools.

New feminists say they’re sick and tired of women at “second-wave” feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women and NARAL Pro-Choice America claiming to speak for them. As more than one woman at the D.C. rally cried, “Enough is enough!”

In mid-February of 2012, Alvare and her friend, attorney Kim Daniels — who now serves as a spokeswoman for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — drafted an open letter to President Obama, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and members of Congress, stating that those who claim to speak for them on matters of sex, marriage and family life do not, in fact, have their story right — and that contraception and abortion are not linchpins of women’s freedom. Among the more than 40,000 women to date who have signed the letter online are Catholic and non-Catholic educators (many of whom home school their own kids), along with what Alvare describes as “thousands upon thousands of nurses, doctors, business owners, lawyers — these women are very smart, focused and determined.”

‘Old Feminism’ vs. the ‘New’

“The new feminism differs from the old feminism in the sense that it encourages women to be who they are,” said Terry Polakovic, executive director of Endow (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women), which has chapters in more than 80 Catholic dioceses across the country.

“As John Paul II said when he described the ‘feminine genius,’ a woman has the capacity, just by her very biology, to make room for another,” Polakovic explained. “Not that everyone is Susie Homemaker. But whether or not she’s a stay-at-home mother, a woman, by nurturing others around her, helps create a life-giving environment. That’s just who she is.”

Veteran pro-life feminist and journalist Mary Meehan said the new feminism is “the legitimate descendant of the ‘first-wave’ feminist movement in this country in the 1840s and 1850s.”

Early suffragists, who lobbied for women’s right to vote — women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony — “were pro-lifers who opposed abortion as an exploitation of women,” said Serrin Foster, who heads Feminists for Life of America (FFL). “The same women who fought for the rights of slaves to be free and the rights of women to vote also fought for the unborn to be born,” said Foster, who invented the slogan, “Women Deserve Better Than Abortion.”

The oldest pro-life feminist organization in the U.S., FFL was founded in 1972, one year before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, specifically to protest and oppose what many women even then perceived to be the National Organization for Women (NOW)’s wrong-headed embrace of abortion as a women’s “health” issue.

Foster says that, by embracing abortion, NOW essentially betrayed women and let universities and workplaces off the hook. Rather than having to provide housing, maternity care, flextime and other resources to pregnant women, university administrators and employers could simply say, “It’s your baby, your choice. If you want to give birth, that’s your private choice, but we have no further obligation to you.”

For nearly two decades, Foster has led FFL in its intensely focused and determined fight against such pregnancy discrimination on college campuses. “You can refuse to choose between forcing women to terminate their education or terminate their babies,” Foster said.

Although pro-life feminism and the “new feminism” collaborate closely with each other, there’s a subtle difference between the two. Polakovic said the “new feminism” includes opposition to abortion, but it also goes beyond protecting the unborn, in that “it’s for every stage of your life” — from conception to natural death.

“The new feminism is bigger than the issues of abortion, contraception and religious freedom,” Alvare agreed. “Still, old feminists got these crucial issues so wrong it’s no surprise that the new feminism grew up initially in disagreement with them.”

Sex, Love and Relationships

New feminists say that, while the old 1960s’ feminist movement was driven primarily by the need for economic and educational equality and equal pay for equal work, the old feminists missed the boat when it came to sex, love and relationships.

By excising God from their thinking, they failed to ask and answer the bigger questions. These questions include: Who is a woman? What are her rights and duties? And what will promote her true freedom and happiness?

“Contrary to popular belief (and old-guard Catholic feminism), following Church teachings on sex and marriage, in spite of the sometimes arduous difficulty of doing so, actually helps women to flourish — physically, emotionally, relationally and socially,” declares new-feminist author and attorney Erika Bachiochi in Women, Sex and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching.

Far from demeaning women and sexuality, Church teachings actually elevate “the meaning of sex at a time when our consumerist culture has debased sex, treating it as simply another form of entertainment,” Bachiochi says. She argues that ample evidence, scientific and anecdotal, reveals “that premarital sex, and especially casual sex, is inherently anti-woman.”

What the old guard failed to understand, this fresh new breed of feminists explains, is that a woman’s true self is found not in radically independent isolation, but in relationship — and most completely in a committed and lasting communion of love. “The old feminism really thought it could excise marriage and kids out of women’s lives, except on the terms they wanted them,” Alvare said. “It turns out these are elements you just can’t declare by fiat are no longer relevant to women’s freedom or happiness.”

Far from seeing women and men as enemies, third-wave feminists see the two sexes as collaborators.

“Our movement, more often than not, also includes men in the conversation, because it takes two to make a baby,” said Meg McDonnell, Women Speak for Themselves’ communications director.

“Women are very keen on the idea of making sure we give proper acknowledgement to the fact that men are involved in this, too.”

Comments

Nonsense! A rose by any other name, or redefined “IS STILL A ROSE.” What is the opposite of a feminist? A non-feminist. And what is that, exactly? One who dose not support equality between men and women. So a new feminist still supports equality, where there is none. To suggest that equality in not part of the New Wave of Feminist is a deception.

Promoting family, and children and marriage while remaining a feminist is also a deception that implies that both men and women guide the family they have created with two heads, because (as they say) two heads are better than one. Bunk! Two heads of State, of Ship, of Business, or of Family does not a healthy family make. It may make a wealthy family, who has health. But I am referring to the process and function of family and not the identity of its components.

Children need Hierarchy. Marriage needs Hierarchy, as the Church needs Hierarchy. Why? because two directions cannot a car go nor a family. So New Feminism puts lipstick on old Feminism and says everything is cool. When the truth is its NOT.

Posted by randall ward on Tuesday, Aug 13, 2013 7:46 AM (EDT):

I don’t buy it. No new explaining of what a women is, is needed. This is just the same stickerburr covered with a little sugar; still sticks in my throat.
Want to know what a good woman is? Read the last of the Book of Proverbs.

Posted by Susan Fox on Tuesday, Aug 6, 2013 10:07 PM (EDT):

Re: Robert T’s comment (notice it’s only the men who are the wet blankets) I do have to say in retrospect that the type of feminism they are discussing here is not “new.” It is probably as old as Susan B Anthony because none of the early feminists are pro-abortion. However, to defend the article I think they are trying to show this “new” feminism in contrast to the NOW type pro-abortion feminism. And that is why they call it “new.”
But Robert if you are saying there is no room in the Catholic Church at all for feminism, you are wrong. My mother was an early feminist (equal pay for equal work).In the 1930s—as a virtuous single woman—she accepted work selling magazines nationwide. She traveled with other women, and retained her virginity until her marriage at age 30. When she married, she was already a successful business woman as she owned her own restaurant in Los Angeles. After her marriage she became a real estate broker, and when my father died when I was four years old, she supported me and later helped me get through college. When I was conceived in 1952 she was 34 years old. Her doctor advised her to have an abortion. Can you imagine? 1952. And why? I guess he thought she was too old. But my mother, of course, refused to do anything of the sort. She was pro-life until the day she died at the age of 82. Death was not on her schedule. Two weeks before her death, the doctor suggested we stop treatment as her kidney was failing. We asked her what she wanted to do and her response was, “Give up on living? That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.” We tried our best to save her, but she died anyway. She was a witness to life until the end. She was also demonstrated that a woman could be a wife, mother and work. In fact, her job was absolutely necessary for my survival because of my father’s early death. Working with a child at home is not the ideal. It’s darn difficult, but sometimes—not for materialistic reasons—it’s absolutely necessary. However, those feminists who erase husbands from the family with birth control and abortion, they and the movement they represent are an abomination. They certainly aren’t REAL women. (That’s an inside joke. One of those horrible feminists organizations is called REAL WOMAN. I remember seeing some poor hapless man walking around at the UN with a “REAL WOMAN” badge pinned to his sweater.) One French “feminist” at the UN told me she had the right to decide if her daughter could live (abortion/infanticide), and if her mother could live (euthanasia). When I suggested she had a lot in common with Adolph Hitler, she was insulted. She could see no connection between her position and that of the Nazis who murdered millions of people. I guess the difference was she didn’t want any functioning adults killed—just children and old people.
God bless you. Susan Fox http://christsfaithfulwitness.blogspot.com

Posted by Casting Crowns on Tuesday, Aug 6, 2013 7:03 PM (EDT):

Isn’t it about time that women refuse to line up behind the Whoopie Goldberg’s, Joy Behar’s, Norah O’Donnell’s, Barbara Walter’s and that disgusting Rosie O’Donnell? How about Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters in Washington DC? Their central tone is always an internalized anger about men, the plight of their lives or how horrible all Republicans are.
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Contrast these women above with someone like evangelist Beth Moore or Ann Graham-Lotz who have the joy of Christ flowing from within out for all to see and hear.

Posted by Vanessa Cowart on Sunday, Aug 4, 2013 9:50 AM (EDT):

Thanks to radical feminism, we have generations of women who believe that “teen pregnancy” is the evil, not premarital sex. A pregnant girl is labeled “irresponsible” for practicing unsafe sex; contraception is the virtue, not chastity. Women feel obligated to have sex with men outside of marriage, and not to expect commitment-not to expect a child or family. Thank you, New Feminism, for stepping to the rooftops to shout to all women, “You can say no! You are free!”

Posted by Julia Anderson on Sunday, Aug 4, 2013 7:50 AM (EDT):

It was so heartening to wake up this morning and read all these positive responses to Helen’s Post! I am so glad to know that there are other intelligent, truly well educated, and humble ladies who are willing to stand up and speak for the real “cause” of women! I am Baptist and we sure could use this kind of scholarship and discussion in regards to women’s influence and responsibility for society. You sock it to ‘em ladies! Count me in!

Posted by Jacqueline on Saturday, Aug 3, 2013 2:35 PM (EDT):

If the behavior of men who take advantage of women and use them as sex objects and then, not taking responsibility for the pregnancy that results is not corrected, any change that you make will not be realized in a positive way. Men have walked away unaffected from the pregnant woman and left her to take the responsibility of rearing a child alone. Thus, pro-choice (abortion) was made prevalent to relieve the woman and the man from this guilt and responsibility. Evil is considered good and good is considered evil.

Men must be taught what the Bible teaches about loving his wife as God loved the church and likewise how a woman must be lovingly submissive to her husband, the head of the family. Until men restore love, respect and reverence for women, this effort to enhance a woman’s self worth is for naught. When have you heard, with the exception of EWTN Crossing the Goal, the clergy speaking about fornication, pornography and what a man and a woman’s role is to prevent a pregnancy…by the use of Chastity and purity. Biblical sex education is a must in every denomination to prevent the demand for abortion. Then all of the enhancements and commitment of a loving relationship between a man and a woman can be realized. Sex is not a right. God thoughtfully created an intimate way to express their love for one another and to pro-create through sex between a husband and a wife. Therefore, sex outside of marriage is fornication which the Bible clearly states is sinful. All single people no matter what their sexual orientation, must practice celibacy. When we ignore the wisdom of God, our almighty Father and proceed under our own understanding, we make a mess of everything. Feminism from the 60’s surely made a mess of life, for example, the lack of commitment (divorce) the killing of one’s own baby (abortion) dressing immodestly and sexually enticing the opposite sex, becoming overly aggressive and controlling, demanding freedom of sex like men…..etc. We must put God first in our lives and more so in our marriage and relationships.

Posted by Robert T H on Saturday, Aug 3, 2013 1:23 AM (EDT):

This article makes us look credulous. Third wave feminism has been around for a long time. So called sex positive feminism, more than any other kind, lives up to Dawn Eden’s claim that feminism is simply pragmatism masquerading as idealism. Children pay a high price for bourgeois women to do whatever they want while remaining morally inviolable. Why we would want to try and redeem a concept which has conceit, mistrust and disdain for the other, i.e. something contrary to the feminine genius is beyond me.http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/eden/03324.html

Posted by Susan Fox on Saturday, Aug 3, 2013 12:29 AM (EDT):

Thank you Linda from Chicago for your kind remarks! Poor Stephen Fox. We are all jumped on you. I hope you are okay. Maybe you are unaware of our responses because you didn’t ask to be notified of the follow up comments. You are welcome here even if we all object to what you say. You provided us with a great deal of entertainment. God bless you. Susan Fox http://christsfaithfulwitness.blogspot.comhttp://www.YouTube.com Chann,el TestisFidelis

Posted by bridgid mauriss on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 4:19 PM (EDT):

I am extremely happy to be a part of such a morally sound and healthy women’s movement! Here, the idea of promoting death, toxic chemicals or any kind of destruction is simply, not ok. In direct opposition to those movements that are against such sound doctrine! I am honored to support, and stand by, such an amazing group of beautiful women!

Posted by Linda from Chicago on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 3:48 PM (EDT):

Hey Susan Fox, sounds like you were there fighting the good fight. I appreciate your comments and I will go to the website you listed. Thanks for your sound and truthful comments. God Bless You and your family!

Posted by Nancy Janzen on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 3:16 PM (EDT):

When I was young I was a feminist back in college. We wanted equal opportunity to be able to advance in society and the workforce. None of us then would have made contraception and abortion all that we were interested in. We wanted every woman to be able to live the life she wanted to live. Elitists have hijacked feminism. No one should say my girlfriend who homeschools her four children including one special needs child and works as a home care nurse for our area, and is president of our Christian motorcycle organization is not woman enough. I get tired just watching her. The difference is they only see their idea of advancement as alright. I see every woman doing what she wants with her life as fulfilling. And that includes marriage and children. That doesn’t mean I want to change everything so women can do everything. I understand the role of the priesthood and it is not just a job that is interchangeable between the sexes.

Posted by Sue Joan on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 2:58 PM (EDT):

Wonderful article!!!! And AMEN totally agree with you!!!! Often what they CALL feminism including medically and morally unsound practices like abortion and artificial birth control, is really FEMININE ABUSE!!! Your article rocks!!! I am a 68 year old REAL feminist!!!! PTL!!!

Posted by teresa on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 11:38 AM (EDT):

Thank you all for your comments, taking it all in. I can see my excitement for women taking a stand may have been a little wrong. I was just glad ladies on the Lords side would stand, but not knowing their agenda, maybe not? I really want to to stand for the ONE.

Posted by Gretchen on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 9:37 AM (EDT):

You are a breath of fresh air in a world that is becoming more morally toxic by the day. Thank you for everything you are doing!

Posted by Janet Corda on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 7:13 AM (EDT):

I remember when the explosive best seller “looking Our for Number One” started to plant the seeds of a self-centered mentality in our society. Extreme Feminists began the spiral of degradation of life outside of the self. Self is all that matters now. What happened to our morality? It has faded away. Human dignity, honor, courage, virtuous living have been pushed aside for “rights”. The unborn, the aged become an interference in our quest for self serving agendas.
Yet we still crave sincere relationships, honesty, commitment. It is not always easy, but should be our goal. Sex should not be treated as just another enjoyable activity. Why the surge in sexual crimes. Lack of self-control, being only concerned about the legality aspect will not work. The child in the womb is treated as a mass of tissue interfering with our selfish agenda.
Hooray for the new feminist movement! Perhaps we can build to a more moral based society that will be better than ever as a result of the drive to step outside of ourselves and develop an attitude of love and service to others.

Posted by Micha Elyi on Friday, Aug 2, 2013 6:36 AM (EDT):

There cannot be any such thing as ‘nice feminism’ no matter how earnestly one might wish for it. Feminism is a kind of sexism - the very name gives it away - that inevitably sinks to bashing and hating men.

Feminism’s goal has never been equality but instead it’s been a quest for more privileges for females. Unearned privileges. For example, although females have never been subjected to all the duties and burdens of full citizenship as men always have been, nor have females done anywhere near an equal share of the unpleasant work of establishing, building, and defending the Republic, feminists demand that females be able to partake of all the privileges of citizenship, including the voting privilege. And then there’s the feminist demand that females receive extra pay for lesser work. Just look around you and examples of feminists egging on natural female greed will accost your eyes at every turn.

Posted by Francis on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 11:53 PM (EDT):

@ Stephen: “reproductive rights such as abortion access”. What does this strange expression mean? I used to imagine that abortions were, in fact, the termination of a reproductive process - indeed, it’s very opposite! Is there some academic institution out there that could teach me how to understand all this new (seemingly oxymoronic) English that is becoming so common these days?

Posted by Susan Fox on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 11:49 PM (EDT):

Right on ladies! Pregnancy is not a disease. It’s natural, and it’s God’s gift to the human race! He said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” That’s how you inherit the earth.
Stephen Fox: I’m sorry we have the same last name. I got mine through marriage. I would like you to know that true pro-life feminism has been around for a long time, and is a BIG group, however, the sleazy wheezy media never report on us. I can remember protesting abortion at the state capital in Washington State with my young son in the ‘90s. There were 500 anti-abortion protestors on the steps of the Capital. There were five—I counted them—pro-abortion activists. Who did the television news feature that night? The tiny minority of pro-abortion activists—no shots of the large crowd on the steps of the capital just close ups of the few death activists. Those filthy women marched up the steps and tried to hand out condoms (to my 9 year old son!) chanting, “Take your Rosaries off my ovaries.” I had to explain condoms to him on the way home. However, he became quite excited about the prospect of defending human life after that, and when he was 12, he went with me to New York to lobby for the pro-life cause at the United Nations.
So Stephen, you have been lied to. You think the pro-life feminists don’t exist. But the media has simply ignored them. I was an award winning newspaper reporter in the 1970s-1991, and I was pro-life and a
woman with a career. I quit my career however in 1991 to become a full time home-schooling mother, and I have never looked back. I have two master’s and two bachelor’s degrees as well so I am not uneducated. My husband of 30 years is now working on his first master’s degree, and hopes to change careers when he turns 65 to something he enjoys more. He is liberated as well as being a faithful husband, who can bring home the bacon, go to school, and do chores. He helped me homeschool our son when he was growing up.
Having been a news reporter and lobbied for the pro-life cause at the UN, I have attended a few select meetings of women from NOW, etc. I remember being with an AP reporter in the 1970s in Washington D.C., and she interviewed Bella Abzug briefly after a meeting. When the AP reporter turned around, it was obvious that Bella didn’t like her because she gestured like a witch cursing the reporter when her back was turned. Bella had those long nails, and that weird floppy hat so she looked like a witch. Gloria Steinem was at that meeting too. There is little love among that group even though they all apparently held the same backward ideas you mentioned. At the UN 2000-2006, I attended the feminists meetings, and they did do witchcraft, and performed witch dances. In their ideas, they were essentially Marxists Socialist, not really women at all. And Stephen they were so afraid. These were died-in-the-wool Marxists Socialist Feminists. But when I made a motion we put abstinence in one of our documents as a means of preventing AIDS, they went ballistic. One poor woman spent an hour explaining how she had AIDs from her Brazilian husband of 20 years (yes that is an injustice), but now she had a female lover. So she explained at great length what creams to use etc. to stop the spread of AIDs when you have a lover. She didn’t realize she was afraid, afraid to love, because she could only love in such an impoverished manner. Also the Marxists feminists at the UN made a point of telling one another that you can’t trust other women (and they looked at me) because they don’t have the right views. So much for freedom of expression among those kinds of feminists.

Also re: rape. I always mention the 54 million Americans killed by abortion since 1973 (54 million people who will never get a hug from their mommie, never go on their first date, never graduate from college, never get married, or have a funeral) But one male who heard me started screaming, “Rape! Incest!” Don’t you idiot males know that the abortion industry covers up the many acts of rape and incest committed by men in the United States. Those poor little girls are taken to the abortion clinics by their rapist! And Planned Parenthood doesn’t report it. In fact they encourage young girls not to tell them who the father is, or allude to the fact that he might be with him. Abortion exists for the convenience of irresponsible men who don’t want to be fathers! And it scars the psyches of women forced into them for the rest of their lives. I have numerous friends, who had abortions, and I can speak to the pain they suffer years later.
So ladies, let’s take the word “feminism” back from the FemiNazis!
God bless you. Susan Foxhttp://christsfaithfulwitness.blogspot.com
or http://www.YouTube Chann,el TestisFidelis

Posted by Wren on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 10:29 PM (EDT):

Sorry, I have to agree with another poster - this is not what others mean when they say “third wave feminism,” which has been around a while. This is something else entirely, but it’s not that.

Posted by Dale on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 9:37 PM (EDT):

As Stephen Fox mentioned earlier, third-wave feminism has been around for 25-30 years, but it doesn’t resemble what Helen Alvare and Kim Daniels are trying to achieve. Of course, there is plenty of room for this new movement, but they will need to call it by a different name.

FWIW, there is much in second-wave feminism which Catholics can agree with, e.g. anti-pornography or opposition to sexual harassment in the workplace. A critique of feminism needs to be fair if it is to be accurate.

Posted by Linda from Chicago on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 6:16 PM (EDT):

Let us pray for Helen Alvare and others who support the rights of women who embrace their feminism as it is given to them by God. If these women speak Truth, they are going out among the wolves. Pray for them that God endows them with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. They will need it. Our society embraces Lies by politizing sin. Remember them in your prayers. I was duped by the feminist of the sixties. Through my conversion, I have been reborn to know the Truth as given to me through God that a women’s role in life is a Holy Life. Hopefully the messages these women send out will enlighten the current female generation to the Truth. Praise the Most Compassionate Holy Trinity and the Most Commpassionate Immaculate Heart of Mary

Posted by Lea Black on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 5:37 PM (EDT):

I forgot to mention in my previous post, the most important and central aspect of my being. I am a very proud Catholic! I was abandoned in the Catholic church by a mother who could not afford a “back-alley” abortion and raised in Catholic care. I was loved, given a sense of something greater than myself. I was given strength to persevere, have faith and never quit.

Posted by Lea Black on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 5:33 PM (EDT):

I have until reading this considered myself anti-feminist. I have an aeronautical engineering degree and an MBA, prior to having to retire due to a stroke, I was the CEO of a large Aerospace engineering firm. A position I worked my way up through the ranks, attending community colleges to keep myself current in my industry. I found women to be more of an obstacle than a support. Men were supportive so long as you didn’t try to act like a man, a mistake too many women make. Women sabotage one another and show a lot of jealousy. Women think if everything does not go their way, blame a man.I got pregnant and was urged to abort with the hreat of losing my ability to attain my career goals if I had a baby. I did not abort and I achieved everything I set out to because I was committed to it! I have come to view women as persistent victims.I try to distance myself from that victim stuff as I find it embarrassing and a behavior that sets women back!Men and babies are not the enemies of women!Selfishness and self-absorbing behavior is our enemy!
I can now feel excited about supporting my own sex again through this group!

Posted by Janice on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 5:03 PM (EDT):

Way to go Helen! There is no freedom in women taking a little pill each day - that stops their natural cycle and possibly makes us bloated, depressed, headaches, blood clots, and GREATLY increase risk of cancers (44% more likely to get breast cancer if taken before your first pregnancy!)What man in their right mind would subject themselves to a daily dose of what the world health organization lists as a Class 1 carcinogenic? Where is the freedom in that! The true freedom comes when we as women are challenged to accept our bodies as the beautiful creation that God designed! Life Giving and made in the image of God!

Posted by Mariann on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 4:46 PM (EDT):

Stephen, gosh, thanks for setting the record straight. Don’t hurt yourself as you slither back to those outlets that you find enlightening, but we know and recognize as bondage to sin.

May God bless you ladies in your work as you seek Truth.

Posted by paul michael on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 4:12 PM (EDT):

The old feminism was motivated by a sordid disrespect, in fact, a scorn for natality, fertility, for sex differences, a scorn for men, babies (“parasites”) and therefore a power struggle with the opposite sex by attempting to become identical with them. It professed ‘monism’ in order to achieve and end that was impossible. How refreshing and delightful it is to hear of Helen’s work and her group. The world is suffering from the old feminism; we need loving maternal, happy women!... it’s been a long time! Ill do anything to support these women! God bless them!

Posted by Father Ed Wade,CC on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 3:10 PM (EDT):

Praise the Lord for this movement. I will pray for you… Go get em!

Posted by gabrielle jones on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 1:28 PM (EDT):

Amen to the new feminism…but let’ remember it take THREE to make a baby,God,woman and man!

Posted by Francis on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 12:41 PM (EDT):

Go, you good things! It’s high time women’s (and men’s and children’s) REAL rights were respected and supported by society and government instead of concocted “rights” beind devised and “extended” to them by mischievous groups with malevolent political agendas. May God be with you in your noble endeavor!

Finally, a woman’s group that celebrates being women as God created us. Where do I sign up.

Elizabeth Earl McDonald

Posted by Father Ed Wade, CC on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 12:33 PM (EDT):

Go get them ladies

Posted by Guy McClung on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 12:09 PM (EDT):

and I am living proof that many - if not most - men “in our American culture lack humility of any kind.” Watch any TV show, go to any mainstream movie, you will not see any evidence of the virtue of humility. It was only recently that I realized that I had lived a life of arrogant pride, thinking I accomplished some things, ignoring that any gifts I had were gifts from God to be used to get me and others back to him-not for my own self-worship. And this lack of humility in our culture and the promotion of self-self-selfish-self are no accident - a humble person is humble with respect to family, others, community, and church. A humble person serves others, not the self. Those now in power have gotten, maintained and increased power by telling especially young people you can ignore all institutions beginning with family and we, the elite power folks, will give you all you need to be happy. Me-Me-Me grab-for-all-the-gusto-you-can-now if-it-feels-good-to-you-do-it-and-do-it-now are all denials of humility. They are at the root of USA cultural demise and that of much of the world. Guy McClung, San Antonio TX

Posted by Stephen Fox on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 12:07 PM (EDT):

Much of this is manufactured reassurance, aimed at Catholics with little knowledge of current feminism besides what (heavily biased) information they are given from outlets such as this. Sorry to burst your bubble, but third-wave feminism is already a ‘brand’, and it’s far from pro-life. It is focused on transgender rights, fighting rape culture, and yes, reproductive rights such as abortion access. To claim such an established term for what is a small minority at best is downright deceitful.

Posted by Fran Conforti on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 11:53 AM (EDT):

I always said that the women’s movement went too far! I’m glad to hear of this new movement!

Posted by teresa on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 11:42 AM (EDT):

Since I know nothing of the rules of your Faith in most areas, I will just say I am glad Christian Women are taking a stand on this, why not start w Catholics and keep going?? Thank you Lord

Posted by Dale Smith on Thursday, Aug 1, 2013 11:27 AM (EDT):

Amen to this. Women are not men. The duality is so important. Women in our American culture lack humility of any kind. And they are replicating the immoral and bad behavior(s) of men in the past. The only place I find women who have humility is at my Catholic church. God Bless them!

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